Illocution and cognition: a constructional approach

This book presents a constructional approach to the study of illocution. Ten directive and commisive speech act categories are analyzed in order to establish their semantic make-up in the form of propositional Idealized Cognitive Models (or ICMs). An inventory of linguistic realization procedures is also provided for each of the semantic variables conforming those illocutionary ICMs. Thus, speech act constructions are defined as pairings of semantic variables form a specific illocutionary ICM and those realization procedures which may activate them linguistically. The resulting constructional account overcomes some of the weaknesses of traditional theories of illocution, since it allows for different degrees of implicitness in the production and understanding of speech acts, as well as for the existence of prototypicality effects within illocutionary categories.